This page lists the standard warrior builds, of which many have several variants (personalized builds), but the idea is the same. Get the same key talents and everything else is left to be personalized with the player's style. If you are having trouble deciding, look to other 80 warriors for spec advice or look up a well know warrior on the WoW armory to see what works best.
Note: Do not post personalized builds unless they are dramatically different than an existing or popular build., Also note ALL of these builds are out of date due to patch 4.0.1

Fury is known for Titan's Grip and has higher sustainable single target damage than Arms, making it popular for PvE DPS, as well as PVP.

Protection is the tanking tree. The introduction of Shockwave as part of WotLK has increased a Warrior's ability to simultaneously tank multiple targets and, combined with Warbringer, removed the "PVE-only" tag from Protection tree.

Arms Warriors use one 2H weapon, whereas Fury Warriors dual-wield 1H or 2H weapons. Protection Warriors use one 1H weapon and a shield.

Until your warrior has Shield Slam at level 40, leveling Protection will definitely be slower than Arms or Fury, and probably will continue to be until he or she picks up Sword and Board at level 55-58. All warriors' essential threat abilities are baseline until at least level 50, when Devastate is available, but all specs remain viable for threat production until at least level 60. Truth be told, warriors at level 80 have all the essential abilities to hold threat on single targets, regardless of spec, but beginning at level 60 you will notice the absence of mitigation, avoidance and threat talents. However, if you don't wish to respec while leveling or don't want to level both 1-handed and 2-handed weapon skills, this guide should help:

Levels 10-14 : Definitely get Improved Bloodrage. Shield Specialization is good, especially if you want to grind with a 1-hander and shield to avoid building up those weapon skills in addition to 2-handers. Improved Thunder Clap is only good this early if you plan on tanking lots of instances as you level, but don't use it while grinding unless you're attacked by multiple foes. Slower enemy swings = less rage & fewer avoided swings = slower grinding.

Levels 15-19 : Getting Glyph of Revenge would be wise if you're using mostly Defensive Stance. Battle Stance may prove more productive since it allows Overpower and doesn't have a damage penalty, at least until you fill up those avoidance talents. Incite is good for Heroic Strike and the occasional Thunderclap when tanking. Put 2 points into Shield Specialization.

Level 35-60 : The rest of the talents fall into place from here on. Pick up everything except for Safeguard and possibly Vigilance. You'll have a spare point to spend to get from tier 8 to 9 - put it in Last Stand or something unfinished.

Level 61-65 : Put 5 points in Deflection from the Arms tree. More avoidance is good for tanking and Revenge openings.

With the implementation of the Looking For Group tool, leveling as a Protection Warrior has become even more viable. The queue for tanks is typically minimal, if not nonexistent. With that in mind, a good Dungeon Leveling Protection build should include:

Levels 10-14 : Improved Thunder Clap is highly recommended. Considering that most pulls are group pulls, doing more damage for less rage is fantastic. Thunder Clap and Revenge will be two of your highest-damage abilities for a long time. Shield Specialization is also almost required. A block is as useful as a dodge until mobs start hitting harder than you block, which won't happen until the 40s, and the extra rage is what allows you to keep going indefinitely. Improved Bloodrage can help you out, but it's by no means necessary.

Levels 20-24 : Improved Revenge gives 60% more damage and Revenge hits another target; Revenge will be your #1 damage ability on small pulls (2-4) and single target fights. Shield Mastery is useful for the cooldown reduction on Shield Block, as you are practically invincible with it is active and you generate an incredible amount of rage. Toughness (warrior talent) and Last Stand can both be useful, but aren't required.

Obtaining Titan's Grip as soon as possible is the main focus of this spec, to maximise damage output. Shouts are also talented to improve their effectiveness, which is helpful both when solo or in a group. Many fury DPS initially go for Two-Handed Weapon Specialization and Impale, although the benefit from them is not as significant at lower levels and obtaining Titan's Grip by level 60 will be far more vaulable.

Before the addition of Taste for Blood and the improvements to Rend, Arms was a poor leveling build until a warrior acquired at least Mortal Strike at level 40. With these improvements, however, Arms is a very capable leveling spec with the ability to make up for typical leveling woes like opponents dodging attacks.

Levels 21-30 : Impale is an excellent talent, as it allows the taking of Deep Wounds. You won't be critting a lot as an early warrior, however, so Improved Overpower provides more damage until gear improves. Filling out Taste for Blood makes Overpower an even more useful attack, and makes Deep Wounds more attractive, though filling it out is not as important as some deeper talents. Hold off on Two-Handed Weapon Specialization for now, you'll need your utility first by picking up Sweeping Strikes, useful when you are faced with multiple enemies.

Levels 31-40 : Get your weapon specialization first (if you don't have an heirloom weapon, skip this as you'll change often, and go for 2H spec/Deep Wounds instead), then Trauma. The last points before level 40 (and MS) can go back to filling out Deep Wounds and 2H Weapon Specialization. Warriors without heirloom weapons should pick up Weapon Mastery as filler, and toss the last point into anything they might want (Iron Will or Deflection are decent leveling filler). Pick up Mortal Strike at 40.

Levels 41-50 : Improved Slam basically gives you another attack you can use - Slam is usable anytime and is relatively cheap compared to the monstrosity that is the 30 rage cost of Mortal Strike, but the loss of swing time that Slam's casting forces on you is crippling until the talent reduces it, so don't use Slam until you have both points in this. Fill out Strength of Arms (Expertise at a low level is handy, plus it provides strength and stam which are both important leveling stats) and take Juggernaut next. This will help with chain pulling, as you won't have to wait for something to die before getting to get some rage while starting a fight (i.e. target will bleed to death, ignore it and move on). Unrelenting Assault makes the amazing damage of Overpower even more so, and lets you put out good damage while wearing a shield by allowing you to use Revenge rapidly whenever it is available. Points into Improved Mortal Strike as filler to get to Endless Rage. At this point 90% of your rage problems should be gone and you should be getting a good idea of what the real Arms playstyle is like.

Levels 51-61 : Sudden Death gives you the last piece of the single-target Arms DPS playstyle puzzle. Blood Frenzy provides some extra damage most of the time (Rend should be up as much as possible unless a target is near death, though the passive attack speed is always present regardless). Wrecking Crew gives you 10% damage most of the time, and as your crit improves it will eventually reach 100% uptime except very early in fights. Chain pulling helps keep it active, and the last two points can either fill it out first or collect Bladestorm first, which gives you excellent short term limited AoE that is prone to pulling aggro in instances, so use it carefully. Use the last point to get the other one.

Levels 62-71 : Now that we have the important Arms talents, we move into Fury. Cruelty should be first, followed closely by Armored to the Teeth which is a solid dps talent that improves with your gear. The last two points can go into either Booming Voice, which is a passable choice, or Unbridled Wrath which is probably better for leveling.

Levels 72-80 : Getting into the final talents, you already have most of the tools you'll need, and these are just gravy. Cleave isn't quite as important at this point as AoE killing is really only worth it with Bladestorm and Sweeping Strikes, and hopefully you're not being crit TOO much, so Commanding Presence makes a good case over Blood Craze and Improved Cleave, though at this point it's a bit of a toss up, except Piercing Howl, which is largely a pvp talent and not really helpful for leveling. As soon as you can, get Improved Execute, which basically provides a scaling boost to a solid finishing move. The last couple points can go wherever, and you should being looking at instancing and raiding builds for when you hit 80.

Overall, Arms is a little less capable than Fury when it comes to multiple targets but makes up for it with good rage management ability and quicker recovery though not being in Berserker Stance while fighting.

To achieve the highest damage, in the last 20% of the boss only use Heroic Strike and Execute it's a little more boring, but when this is used in conjunction with Death Wish and other damage CDs you will see a considerably increase from your normal rotation DPS.

This spec (15/3/51) includes all essential Protection tree talents for tanking as well as 3/3 Armored to the Teeth in the Fury tree and up to 3/3 Deep Wounds in the Arms tree for improved threat/DPS while tanking. It is based on work done at TankSpot and is an excellent general purpose spec.

Two points are unallocated in this build -- depending on your needs and playstyle, they may be placed into Cruelty, Improved Spell Reflection (highly advised for tanking Malygos in Phase 2), putting more points into Shield Specialization, or Puncture (not recommended except for tanks who spend a lot of time soloing), or, for tanks who wish to PvP more effectively without retalenting, Improved Disarm, Safeguard, or Iron Will. (These are only a few suggestions. Nearly any talent available under this build for these two points may have some utility. Where these points go is truly up to the individual Warrior tank.)

Some tanks may wish to forego Deep Wounds in favor of Cruelty or to fully spec into Shield Specialization, however with 3/3 Incite and in a raid environment with full buffs it is important to realize that Deep Wounds will have nearly 100% uptime on bosses and can contribute over 5% of a Warrior tank's total DPS (which is no longer insignificant to a raid). The Warbringer/Improved Charge combo can also be extremely powerful in non-raid environments.

Suitable for main tanks and off-tanks. This tanking build emphasizes on the critical strike damage and attack power. As a tank, you will have significantly increased critical strike chance from various talents, so maximizing the critical strike damage will ensure to hold the aggro.

Designed for players who Want to utilize all three aspects of the Warrior class: A dedicated spec for Arms PvP / A Fury spec that allows both DPS and tanking. While Improved Berserker Stance was sacrificed, the build still allows full development into the Fury tree enabling near maximum DPS in Berserker Stance.

In terms of its tanking capabilities, there are several ups and downs:

Designed for progression tanking and focuses on improving a warrior's debuffing capabilities (Improved Thunderclap, Improved Demoralizing Shout) and maximizing survivability (Commanding Presence for extra health, Improved Disciplines and Last Stand/Shield Wall glyphs to bring cooldowns in line with encounter timers). Rage generation is of little concern due to large amounts of incoming damage from raid bosses. Points may be shifted depending on the nature of the encounter, with Improved Spell Reflection being a good candidate should one wish to forgo points in Improved Revenge or Gag Order.

Has all of the needed prot tree talents for tanking as well as Cruelty for higher crit chance for high dps and more threat. This spec also has Armed to the Teeth for more damage, improved demo shout for less damage taken, and 2/3 Blood Craze for minimal health regain. The reason I didnt go down the arms tree for improved rend and the like is only becasue the +20% damage for rend isnt that much when it isnt that much to start out with.

Blood Craze should only be talented if the player does not have 540 defense, making them uncrittable.

Effective talent build in raids (has been used to clear Naxxramas and Sartharion 10/25 player). Pretty much Godmode for questing, and little downtime. This is specially a build for the Fury build lovers who want to tank with a mix ;) The very interesting part about this build is the possibility to tank without a shield. The very fast attack speed and 4 sec cooldown to Bloodthirst (improved by glyph) makes it a very self-sufficient build due to self-healing. For good aggro building, cycling of Thunder Clap, Improved Cleave, Improved Sunder Armor is enough. Stamina determines your self-heal therefore it should be priorized. For optimal performance, choose items not related to shield capacities.

This spec is for those warriors who love to solo old-school instances/raids/heroics on their own for money/gear/mounts. The key talent of this build is [Bloodthirst] which gives warrior ability to heal himself during the fight (and further improved with [Glyph of Bloodthirst]). With Improved Thunder Clap, Incite, Improved Cleave, Improved Revenge etc... warrior can put really high AoE dps making it easier to clear trash packs. With this spec warrior can solo pretty much any TBC dungeon/heroic and at least the whole ZG and 4/6 of AQ20 on their own if he knows what he's doing.

Does about 1.2-1.5k DPS and holds threat well with multiple target mobs. Glyph of Devastate, Glyph of Sunder Armor, and Glyph of Blocking are recommended with this build. Rotation should have Heroic Strike, Revenge, Shield Slam, Devastate, Thunderclap, and Concussion Blow. Cleave and Rend are recommended on mobs with more than 4 targets once threat is established on skull (your main target). Uses Iron Will

Based on high avoidances for raid tanking. Based heavily on Revenge and Shield Slam for threat generation. Reduced rage cost on all abilities, particularly Devastate, allows for high rage and frequent use of Heroic Strike.

An adaptation of the cookie-cutter tank build, sacrificing the mitigation of full Shield Specialization with only 2/5 points. Deep Wounds,Armored to the Teeth, and 2/5 Cruelty for increased melee damage, Gag Order increases Shield Slam damage by 10% and Improved Revenge increases Revenge damage by 20%, and also allows a stun chance. 3/3 Focused Rage gives you more rage to deal with throughout fights, and makes soloing for dailies, etc., in defensive stance extremely effective because of the low rage cost and high crits of Shield Slam and Revenge.

This build is not used many by warrior's, how ever i personally highly recommend it to those who have trouble with AoE tanking in heroic's. Since Cleave does 120% more dmg of [Improved Cleave) and the Glyph which makes Cleave hit a 3rd Target. for the rest it got all the needs a warrior need. all avoidance points you can use.

In my expierience this build works excellent for tanking in all kind of ways. and likely never aggro loss.

This build was mage first for PvE but I found it was highly effective in PvP. In TBC I always found the same issues with warriors, you could not stack enough mitigation and keep a guaranteed rage supply, then WotLK handed me perfection, when it used damage and hit produced rage produced by the warrior on the amount done. Since it hit 80 I have spent about 2 months changing my spec until i fixed this issue permanently. This is my favored outcome, close to maximum threat output, damage output is good, and rage generation is brilliant. I have never found my rage too low, or been easy to kill with this spec, and anyone using it will be very pleased. The improvements to damage and crit will keep rage high, while the rest of the tree holds every mitigation talent that will make you unkillable.

This hybrid build has MAX HP as of both talents in arms and protection tree's that improve stamina. It has been tested on ICC10 and ICC25 with major success. It is good against bosses but have some problems with trash mobs.

PvP Arms builds tend to focus less on pure damage and more on mobility, control, and survival for both the warrior and his partner via utility talents like Improved Hamstring, and would glyph accordingly.

Hybrid arms DPS/PVP spec. For people who want to be able to DPS, and PVP. Generally more gear dependent than most other builds.

Because Weapon Mastery being left out, it is a good idea to stack expertise. Also because of Iron Will being left out, you must focus on controlling your Berserker Rage utility cooldown. The dps is exactly the same as any other arms dps spec.

This is a very different kind of Arms build that utilizes most of the typical Arms builds out there but this build has a hidden ace or two; Firstly, with the Unrelenting Assault talent your Revenge is only a 1 sec cooldown! In case you didn't know...this is the lowest it could POSSIBLY get. Combine this with Shield Block and you have 10 seconds of Revenge spamming while you block everything they have to swing at you. This isn't so much an Ace as it is overlooked. Secondly, with a macro set up for Last stand and Enraged Regeneration (or a really fast clicker) you have a source of health gain that unsurpassed by any Arms or Fury warrior!

Another interesting aspect to this build is is the slightly higher defensive values in exchange for a slightly lower offensive output. You make be lacking 3% from Cruelty, but because of the ease to spam Revenge when the Unrelenting Assault talent is taken, I say it's a nice trade off. With a decent amount of Crit and Armor Pen, it becomes very nice and very surprising when you get off 10 Revenge hits back-to-back-to-back. And people were worried over the "Revenge Nerf"...no longer. This is much better as even though we lost the stun, we got more damage that easily spammable so long as you can keep them in front of you. Lastly my fellow warriors, Bladestorm is amazing...Bladestorm + Retaliation is better. Or if you can...Bladestorm + Sweeping Strikes (if it's multiple people clumped together) We aren't underpowered...we're overlooked. Punish them for it.

I haven't tried this in Arena play yet becuase I'm not big on arena. But I have tried this is in world PvP and Battlegrounds. I like the results.

This build is for the warrior who wants to stand a better chance in PvP situations against any class while taking as little damage possible. Like other builds, you'll charge in and do the warrior thing as you'd expect. Only instead of using Hamstring (with or without the talent and glyph), you'll instead rely on Piercing Howl to keep your enemies close to you in case your stuns fail. Piercing Howl is superior to Hamstring in PvP in that Hamstring is subject to being blocked, dodged, parried or missing. Where as Piercing Howl will likely be resisted. It's duration is much shorter, so you'll have to keep the debuff up constantly. The talented charge is just for the extra rage generation, which could be an extra Heroic Strike (which when paired with Piercing Howl does a little extra damage) Or even a timely Concussion Blow.

The real kicker here is that you're likely to be underestimated and this is where you'll show your fangs. Typical strategy is to charge, piercing howl and do whatever suits you best. Keep in mind that with a Shield in hand, you can only block against attacks that are coming from the frontal arc. So be sure to back away from the target once in a while and still keep up Piercing Howl. This helps to make sure that they stay in front of you while you block most if not all (Shield Block) of their attacks and readies a Revenge.

This build may not be able to put out damage like other Warrior builds, but due to it's high survivability thanks to your high health, armor, defensive values, and the defensive warrior skills, you'll easily outlast many of your enemies and still be respected.

I've done a few Battleground with this build-minus the 2 points in improved charge due to my being level 78- and I have to say that this has proven to be quite stout. I've also tried this build out as a leveling build and though it lacks the power of the other builds, you're always ready for a tussle with any enemy player.

Now before anything, i am a slightly new player. My main build is Protection and i have been PvP'ing with it since level 10. I've come to understand a lot about it in player vs player engagements and this build is what would seem perfect to me. I am only level 70 at the moment, but this is the build i have been looking at over and over for when i am finally 80. The strong points of this build being Constant damage with Improved rends and Deep wounds, making those Rogue encounters ever so easier. I went for the Tactical Mastery because i often find myself switching between Battle and Defensive stance to apply necessary Hamstrings to my opponent. A lot of builds i saw had Vigilance, which honestly seems useless to me in pvp and seemed as if they were using it to just waste points, i instead went for the improved bloodrage which would have some use unlike Vigilance. Also opted for Improved Disarm as a -1/3 cool down time is very nice for those lengthy encounters, and the added vulnerability while the enemy is disarmed is nice as well.